A current adviser to the Department of Homeland Security is a Muslim leader who has accused America of doing Israel’s “dirty work,” named Israel as a “suspect” in the September 11 terror attacks and has been criticized as an apologist for terrorists.
Salam Al-Marayati is the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He currently serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Committee’s (HSAC) Foreign Fighter Task Force, as well as the HSAC Subcommittee on Faith Based Security and Communications. (Note: this is not the Muslim DHS advisor The Daily Caller wrote about on Monday.)
In 2001, Al-Marayati suggested that Israel — not Islamic extremists — was ultimately behind the September 11 terror attacks.
“If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies,” he said.
In 2013, Judicial Watch noted that Al-Marayati told attendees at a 2005 conference for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) that “Counter-terrorism and counter-violence should be defined by us. We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country. So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another.”
In 2012, in a debate on RT, Al-Marayati accused the United States of doing Israel’s “dirty work” for them.
“The other point here, which is very important historically, the United States has done a lot of dirty work that has served the interests of Israel,” he said. “It destroyed Iraq. It supported the destruction and crippling of Egypt. It has crippled the Gulf.”
In 2015, the Obama administration was sharply criticized for inviting Al-Marayati to a three-day summit on fighting extremism — a fact the White House initially tried to conceal from reporters.
Investor’s Business Daily took an editorial stand against the invite, arguing that: “Al-Marayati has a long record of defending terrorists and justifying violence against non-Muslims — an easy one for the White House to vet for extremism.”
According to White House visitor records, Al-Marayati has visited the White House 11 times since 2009.
The IBD editors went on to note that “In a 1999 PBS interview, moreover, he called Hezbollah terrorist attacks ‘legitimate resistance,’ doubling down on his months-earlier claim that Hezbollah’s 1983 suicide bombing of more than 240 Marines in Lebanon was not terrorism but a ‘military operation — exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington’s enemies.'”
Kyle Shideler, the director of the Center for Security Policy’s Threat Information Office, told The Daily Caller that “Al-Marayati’s association with the HSAC underlines what an unfortunate farce the entire [Combatting Violent Extremism] program is. Al-Marayati’s only notable counter-terrorism contribution is having suggested Israel be included as a suspect on 9/11.”
“His very organization, MPAC has historically co-sponsored events in support of the very kinds of extremists he’s been appointed to help oppose, which is no surprise given that the organizations roots lay with men who literally studied at the foot of Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan Al-Banna,” Shideler said.
“As long as the Obama Administration is more concerned with keeping groups like Al-Marayati’s happy with them instead of investigating actually terrorism, we will never have a sane counter-terror policy.”
The Daily Caller previously reported on Monday that a current sitting member on the HSAC Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism, Laila Alawa, is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said that the 9/11 attacks “changed the world for good” and has consistently disparaged America, free speech, and white people on social media.
The Department of Homeland Security has not replied to multiple requests for comment regarding Alawa and Al-Marayati’s advising roles.
Follow Peter Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson
